Drive-by Saviours (7 page)

“Fish is higher in protein and lower in fat,” Bumi said from behind the man, who turned, surprised, and faced the boy.

“His price is too high,” the man said. “He won't negotiate.”

Yusupu stared at Bumi, mouth agape, as if he were seeing a loved one's ghost, uncertain whether to rejoice or run.

“He don't understand your smooth talk,” Bumi told the man, slipping into his market slang. “When you say great fish deserves a great price, he don't understand the difference.”

“Maybe he should learn better Indonesian,” the man said.

“Maybe you should learn better Buginese.”

“But I'm from Java, what do I need with Buginese?”

“It would help you buy fish.”

“Well, I don't want it that badly.”

“You're almost drooling. You said it was great.”

“That was just a line.”

“Well Sir, when you haggle, telling the seller his product is great won't help you get a good price.” There was a bratty and devious part of Bumi that enjoyed goading and baiting his less formidable opponents, and intimidating bearish buyers.

“Perhaps for the uneducated haggling works better than negotiation,” the man said. “But not for me.”

“Oh, you're an educated man?”

“I'm a teacher,” he said.

“Then you'll appreciate my father's work to send me to school. It's very expensive, but he always says ‘only the best for my boy.'”

Yusupu smiled but said nothing.

“So, what school do you go to then?”

“Oh, I'm not going to school yet, or I'd be there now, wouldn't I?” Bumi said, anticipating a trap. “My father is saving money so I can go next year, so I can overcome my humble roots and poverty.”

Yusupu smiled, trying to look humble and poor. The boy was on his game with no signs of rust.

“So, what insultingly low price are you offering for this great fish?” Bumi asked.

“Well, I haven't made an offer yet. I was waiting for him to give me a better price.”

“Another haggling hint, Sir. You have to make a counter-offer. He won't counter his own offer for you. Don't they haggle in Java?”

“Of course they do! Well, you are a smart young man, aren't you? His price was five hundred, but I'll pay no more than three hundred.”

It was all too easy. Two hundred was the cut off point. If you got more than that for a fish, well, Yusupu would eat and drink plenty that night. Or Bumi would get his materials.

“Four hundred!” shouted Yusupu, getting back into the spirit of the game.

“Well, alright,” said the teacher.

Bumi knew the man was being kind, offering a nice gesture for the sake of his education and the man's sense of being a good person. Yusupu was ecstatic and danced upon the man's departure. Whether it was for his sake or the extra rupiah Bumi wasn't sure.

“Bumi! Why haven't you been home?” Yusupu asked when his jig was complete.

“They won't let us, Daddy. No one is ever available to take us to the dock on Friday, and they won't let us go by ourselves. I end up at the stupid mosque when I should be visiting home. I had to sneak away today just to see you. I'll be caned when I return.”

This angered Yusupu. No one had the right to harm his boy.

“Bumi, I wish I could take you home, but they would find you and we'd all be punished for preventing Indonesia's development.”

“I know, Daddy. You can't take me back.” Bumi paused for a deep breath, the kind you inhale from outer space. “Daddy, I need money. For my escape.” He cringed at the impending blow, but it didn't come.

“Escape?” asked Yusupu. “To where?”

“Tana Toraja.”

“I can't afford that, Son.”

“All I need is fifteen thousand rupiah, enough to buy some materials for my friend Arum. She'll use it to make some sarongs and I'll sell them for a good price. We'll share the profits and I can pay you back.” The words rushed out like the noises of a scared animal and Bumi couldn't stop them or tailor his explanation. It was too blunt.

Again Bumi cringed as Yusupu's hand moved from his side, but he merely reached into his pocket and pulled out three five-thousand-rupiah notes, a small fortune, handed them crumpled to Bumi and said, “Will you come back again, Son?”

“Yes,” Bumi affirmed. “To pay you back. My love to Mommy and Alfi.” He kissed his father and ran, unable to stand another moment with this strange old man who had replaced his audaciously dangerous father.

AFTER LEAVING ARUM WITH THE MATERIALS HE'D PURCHASED,
Bumi ran from the central market through two different back alleys and up onto the main road, past a bewildered policeman and down a street full of hawkers, all the way to the bus terminal where he plopped empty-breathed directly into the backseat of a minibus. From his seat he watched the road unfold, ignoring the communal conversation of his fellow passengers. He could think only of the danger ahead, the pain of punishment.

For once Bumi was lucky. He beat the rest of his class back to the school, and reported immediately to the Headmaster, Pak Wayan, to explain that he'd gotten separated from the class, wandered around the open-air main bus depot for a few confusing and frightening hours, then decided to catch a bus back to the school. The headmaster stared blank-faced at him across the desk before dismissing the boy with a wave of his hand, showing Bumi his long nails as if to say, ‘My brain is far too important to deal with dirty things like you today.'

Bumi scurried from Wayan's office with due deference and remorse, not for his lies but for his insignificance, for wasting such a one's time. He found his bunk and began writing a letter to his family in the hopes that someone in the city could one day read it to them, maybe Arum. The letter began: “I have found the secret to surviving school life: play dumb.” And so he did for a long, long time.

THE NEXT TWO MONTHS WERE NERVE-RATTLINGLY SLOW. ALTHOUGH
the play-dumb strategy allowed him to evade corporal punishment and peer ridicule, it was like locking up a hungry animal and placing raw meat just beyond the bars. Bumi was both the warden and the prisoner. It took self-discipline to be this dumb.

His brain's boredom with life behind bars was coupled with escape anxiety. The next time he got ‘lost' on a field trip there would be no return, if he was lucky. He wondered if it was really possible to escape. What if the bus driver didn't let a kid on the bus? Or what if that driver turned him in for truancy? These thoughts became progressively harder to bear as they ricocheted around his brain all hours of the day.

And what would he do when he got to Tana Toraja anyway? He knew that Torajans had some similarities with his own culture and language, but they were of a different ilk, rice farmers and Christian-pagans to boot. They knew nothing of Bumi's worlds: fish and sand and water; concrete and books.

So prevalent were these thoughts on Bumi's mind that playing dumb became easier in the eight weeks he'd given himself to implement his plan. He was like a fish on deck that had given up floundering and let oxygen depletion take its course. Within weeks some of his peers' Indonesian language skills became as good as his, without the colloquialisms, but with better overall grammar.

Still, thoughts of escape and potential consequences persisted, becoming an obsession that paralysed him as his eight-week deadline passed and became nine weeks, then ten. He wanted to just go and get it over with, consequences be damned. He wanted to drop the whole plan.

It was during week eleven that a new form of teasing began. Bumi had failed a pop grammar quiz, after having barely passed the previous three quizzes. His Indonesian was of the snap, crackle, let's make a deal in the marketplace variety. He had yet to master perfect grammar and his thoughts were elsewhere during the lessons. His first failure was made public via Ibu Nova's habit of announcing everyone's marks, then giving the mean and median marks as an added math lesson.

Upon hearing Ibu say, “Bumi: four out of ten,” Daing, once Bumi's biggest fan, began to laugh. The whole class followed Daing's lead and began laughing at the mark. Bumi could have sworn that Ibu Nova waited a long minute before saying, “Alright children, settle down. I'm sure Bumi did his best.”

Up to this early point in his life, Bumi had been physically abused, taken from his home coercively and denied the freedoms of visitation to his family and speech. Yet this became the first time he experienced such an intensity of raw anger that he had to restrain himself from attacking someone. He had fantasized on violence numerous times, but never before felt such an immediate urge for it. When the class ran outside for recess Bumi ran ahead and turned to face Daing at close range. “
Pantat lu!
” he shouted, using the worst Indonesian insult he could think of.

Daing, who had scored nine out of ten on his grammar quiz, had no idea what that meant, but thought it sounded insulting by the severe tone in Bumi's voice.

The other children were shocked by the severity coming from the usually good-natured Bumi. They all secretly liked him, even though he was a show-off. Lately he'd become much nicer and quieter, less bossy. Daing was their leader now, though it appeared a challenge was being issued.

“Shut up, Bumi,” Daing shouted, switching to Buginese, not knowing any Indonesian insults, “or I'll punch your face.”

“You shouldn't laugh at me,” Bumi said, his voice trembling as he switched unconsciously to Buginese in response to Daing.

Daing rolled his eyes toward the heavens as if to ponder Bumi's statement, then said in Indonesian, “You forget how to talk Indonesian, Bumi?”

He laughed and so the others did too, pointing and calling out in that universal singsong of children's taunting, “Heee caaan't re-mem-beeeeeer, heee caaaaan't re-mem-beeeeeeer.”

Bumi looked at them, suddenly not angry anymore, just disgusted with his former friends. “We were all friends back on Rilaka,” he said in Indonesian. He added for effect, “Fuck you all!”

Again Daing didn't understand the words or like the tone, so he punched Bumi's jaw, which shifted to the left as Bumi's knees buckled and he flopped onto his back, stirring a cloud of dust into the air above him.

When Bumi's dust cleared, Daing found in Bumi's place a larger, older boy who went by the name Robadise, a mainlander.

“Good afternoon,” Robadise said.

The children all stared up at this giant among them and gawked, the way Americans gawk at Hollywood actors, awed by a superior human being. None of the city kids had ever spoken to them before.

It was Bumi who responded first, from his back. “Afternoon,” he said, deferentially.

“Afternoon,” repeated the other children. Bumi was still large for his age, but when Robadise helped him up Bumi found he barely reached the older boy's shoulders.

“I'm Robadise. Robadise Paradise.” He smiled at his self-appointed moniker with the exotic English rhyme. He was speaking to Bumi, with his back to the others.

“I'm Bumi.”

“
Boom! Eeee,
” Robadise said with a laugh, turning Bumi's name into its English homonym. Bumi, not knowing a word of English, did not laugh, though the others did, assuming Bumi was being made fun of again.

Robadise spun on his heel and snapped, “Bumi speaks better Indonesian than any of you!” silencing their laughter. He smiled and continued. “In fact, I've never heard a little kid who could swear so good.”

What could they say to this giant city-child with the funny rhyming name? Daing did the best he could: “If his Indonesian is so good why did he fail his grammar test?”

The question seemed to stun Robadise slightly, but he soon replied, “Who needs grammar? No one uses grammar in the real world. Bumi speaks fast and smooth. Compared to him you all sound like retards.”

Bumi recognized this insult from the market. He was often called a retard when he tried to overcharge for fish. ‘Kid, you must be retarded if you think I'll pay that,' or, ‘Do you think I'm retarded? That's too much.' For Bumi the term had always been an extreme but harmless insult because in the market slurs are just part of doing business. Terms like thief, liar, fool, retard, con artist, witch, devil; these were the terms of trade, and meant that to reach a deal some adjustments were needed. But when Robadise said the word it was serious. A retard was not something you could adjust your way out of. You were what you were, and apparently, most Rilaka children were retards. Bumi was personally offended on their behalf, but they didn't seem to care. They were oblivious to the fact that they were being insulted. They just stood there looking perplexed. Like retards.

“Hey Bumi,” Robadise said with a smirk, “let's go play
gaple
.”

Bumi agreed reluctantly. He loved
gaple
, but walking away from his stunned friends he felt like he was a worse traitor than any of the guards of Sukarno.